Religion and Atheism

There was a lot of negative questions raised and a lot of hate when Australia's first female PM, Julia Gillard announced she was an atheist. Being a Christian, mainly Catholic country that caused much hate of her by some

I wasn't aware the Australian Christian Lobby represented all of us :|

Anyway - to me, religion - and especially belief in a deity - is tantamount to submission, and that is something that clashes so hard with my personality, I simply will not accept it (I like my individuality and the ability to question how things work, thank you very much). Reading Dawkins' The God Delusion only reinforces that in my mind.
 
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King Gumball said:
There was a lot of negative questions raised and a lot of hate when Australia's first female PM, Julia Gillard announced she was an atheist. Being a Christian, mainly Catholic country that caused much hate of her by some :/ Having an atheist President or PM would not be something many countries would approve of, and in most religious countries that would never happen.
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Really? I wasn't under the impression that Australia was a particularly religious nation. I also heard that there were allegations that Obama was a Muslim and that people were demonstrating about it when he was first elected. To be honest I can't imagine the the UK would act up if our PM turned out to be atheistic, and David Cameron doesn't seem like the most religious man anyway.

Atheist by the way.
 
I am Christian. I don't really talk about it unless asked, even in real life. I prefer to let my deeds and actions show who I am rather than ramble off to every person I meet about Christianity. I'm the type who gets turned off by something the more I hear about it, so I try to keep it in mind that there may be other people like me, who would be turned off if I rambled endlessly about Christianity.
 
Really? I wasn't under the impression that Australia was a particularly religious nation.

You're right, we generally aren't - but the government sucking up to the Australian Christian Lobby and other such lunatic fringe groups (religious fanatics down here are generally considered crazy by most people, regardless of religious affiliations from either side or lack thereof) isn't helping with giving that impression.
 
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Professor Doakes said:
Also Agnosticism is the lazy man's Atheism, true story.
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This made me laugh. XD

Sydian said:
In my time here, I've found that most people on PC are agnostic or atheist. But maybe there are more religious people here and I just haven't been looking hard enough.
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I agree. I've been on PC since around 2007 (alt. accounts, mind you. This is my new permanent account. :3) and I've rarely found people that are outright religious. Everyone I've come across is either atheist or agnostic. =/

Went said:
Well I'm atheist, but not because I believe there is a god, but because nobody has shown me scientific evidence of the existence of a god. The same way I don't think Unicorns exist even though they are mentioned in old legends from hundreds of years ago, I don't believe in a god just because of that.

But I also think that the mian point of religions is giving you a set of rules and morals to help you live a happier life. If I can have my own morals to be happy and make the people around me happy as well, I don't think I need to follow some set by any religion (which always include some... rather pointless ones).
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Well-spoken, Went. I believe that the original purpose of religion was to provide a moral neutral ground from which society should better themselves. What happened between then and now...nobody knows. o_O

Jolene said:
Atheism isn't a belief. It's a non-belief. When you don't believe in Santa it isn't called a "belief". I don't see why there is even a word for atheism.
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Atheism comes from the Greek theos meaning "god." á means "without; lacking". átheos, as such, means "without/lacking a god; godless." -ism is a suffix for a "doctrine; belief." Seeing as átheos means "godless" and -ism means "belief", the prefix carries to the suffix, changing the entire phrase to "lack of a belief in a god." Atheism is an ancient word. =/

Scarf said:
People like to have terms to differentiate themselves from others, that way you can say things like "we're the similar-to-ourselves group and not at all like the different-from-us group over there." We're individualistic. We like to be able to say "I'm not like you" even if it means we have to form a collective to do so.
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Conformity at its finest. Isolate a few individuals and they'll find something that makes them different from everyone else.

Jubilation said:
I'm atheist. My family are all Catholic so you can bet we have our fun moments of bliss in between yelling about me not going to church.
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I'm in the same boat. I'm atheist and my entire family is Christian (it get's lonely...). Seeing as I'm the only one, I have to watch my actions. For example, I don't bless my food anymore and my aunt gets on me for it. Also, my uncle is a pastor at a church and he invited me out to church tomorrow with a bunch of his friends. I have no clue what the heck I'm going to do now. XD
 
Ωmega said:
Also, my uncle is a pastor at a church and he invited me out to church tomorrow with a bunch of his friends. I have no clue what the heck I'm going to do now. XD
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This might be considered off-topic, but it's to do with religion so I think it's alright - in regards to your situation above there shouldn't be any problem with going to church. I went to a Catholic school so there were masses all the time, all you have to do is cross your arms over your chest when they're handing out the bread or just not go up at all. You don't have to speak any of the prayers either. If anything you could go just to spend time with your uncle. Like, to be friendly. It's entirely up to you but yeah.
 
Eliminator Jr. said:
This might be considered off-topic, but it's to do with religion so I think it's alright - in regards to your situation above there shouldn't be any problem with going to church. I went to a Catholic school so there were masses all the time, all you have to do is cross your arms over your chest when they're handing out the bread or just not go up at all. You don't have to speak any of the prayers either. If anything you could go just to spend time with your uncle. Like, to be friendly. It's entirely up to you but yeah.
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It's not that simple. Being a pastor, he openly advocates for religion. Being atheist, I want next to nothing to do with the church. If I go with him, he's going to be staring at me the whole time waiting for me to do something that's against my own beliefs (or lack thereof). =/
 
Ωmega said:
It's not that simple. Being a pastor, he openly advocates for religion. Being atheist, I want next to nothing to do with the church. If I go with him, he's going to be staring at me the whole time waiting for me to do something that's against my own beliefs (or lack thereof). =/
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And you have to put up with those "You're going to burn in hell" looks, I'm quite used to those. In London it's the muslims who are the most forward when it comes to religion, Christians tend to be far less vocal.

And Jolene, there's a word for not believing in God because language constantly evolves and changes to suit human needs. Atheism up until the later Enlightenment was usually synonymous with variosu forms of 'Paganism'. Either way, Atheism is a belief as it is contested and it is not a pure matter of certainty. As an Atheist I can admit that.
 
Atheist: Those without belief in God. Denies the existence of God.
Agnostic-Atheist: Borderline both. Hard to explain, have fun researching that though.
Agnostic: Does not know.

If you ask me, Atheists are like religious people. They believe in their religion because they claim to be true, while Atheists don't believe because they claim they are to be true.

I'm not sure what I am, I consider myself Agnostic but some say I'm Agnostic-Atheist. Mind helping me out?
I don't know if God or the afterlife exist. All I know is that the universe and the galaxy itself works fine without us, but why are we here? Even our universe would do fine without our galaxy. I don't believe what I don't know, I believe what I do know. Since there is no evidence to prove or disprove God, I won't believe there is God but I won't believe if there is no God. Although I follow no faith, I still have an interest in learning other people's religion, I think this has to do with me enjoying History classes.


Anyway, Happy New Year
 
I used to be Atheist but recently I've started feeling more and more spiritual, mainly because of my mother's influence. I mean I don't know if there's very many people on here who believe in all that "alternative mumbo jumbo" [as it has been called on other forums] but I do. Because there really is some stuff that happens to me, within my family and to others that I don't know how to explain. It could be my own lack of scientific knowlege or that I am a thanatophobic and like to believe there is some sort of life after we die. However my study of Biology for my Leaving Certificate from Secondary school sometimes conflicts wih my belief.

It's all very confusing for me.
 
I used to be Atheist but recently I've started feeling more and more spiritual

The only thing "atheism" denotes is lack of belief in a higher power; you can still be "spiritual" and atheist at the same time, Hinduism has had this for ages.
 
Sydian said:
Seems like the world doesn't care for religion anymore...I reckon. I don't pay attention. I'm a Christian, though. Not the best to represent the title, but I do believe in God and all that jazz, but I'm not insanely religious or anything. Sometimes I honestly just...don't care. I guess that sounds bad to anyone else that comes to read this thread and is also a Christian, but hey, I don't care what people think of me.

I also think that Christians get a pretty bad reputation. Hey guys, we're not all knocking on your doors, passing out Bibles, and trying to get you to believe. Some of us actually accept how other people are. I'm not gunna think less of someone because they don't have the same beliefs as me.
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What Sydian says. Just the same stuff like me too. Also have to agree with her.
 
I'm deeply spiritual, but not religious. I have no religion, and the debate about what I would technically fall under if it had to be defined is pretty convoluted. I simply don't feel like I need one or that I need to have a particular stance on what is and isn't real, possible, true, etc at this point in my spiritual journey. I listen to all but follow none.
 
well, the conclusion i have come to that works for me is... nothing..... i don't feel the need that i should label myself as a specific genre of belief (or lack of). i'm not trying to non conform or anything, i just never really saw the point of branding myself.
 
Me? I'm Atheist. I have a half christian family (My dad's side is religious), but I was raised without a religion. My dad's family (although he hasn't himself), have tried to convert me to Catholicism, but I've had none of it. My arguments with them have been some of my proudest moments; while it was unintentional, I converted my Aunt to Atheism.
 
I am religious.

I read the whole thread and also the blog about atheism and agnosticism which was shared by Poster. The views prevalent here are commonplace all over the cyberspace and otherwise, no new information or new point of view was presented. Im not flaming anyone here, but just thought I would point the fruitlessness of such discussions out. This is just not the right time-space co-ordinates in which to initiate such discussions.

Of course, as far as this only stays constrained to merely the sharing of our views, and not necessarily debating on/discussing about them, this does not cause any major harm, only discomfort to the likes of me who want to speak, but would not, realizing the sheer futility of discussing religion in an online secular forum.

I am not gonna say another word because I made a promise to myself that I wont get into debates/discussions in online forums, especially secular ones. Cuts too much of your time and the end result is a big bucket full of nothing. At least most of the times.
 
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I believe there is a heaven and hell.A god and a devil but i don't believe anymore than that and i could careless about religions.I have no religion but the way i choose to run my life.
 
Noblebeastx said:
I believe there is a heaven and hell.A god and a devil but i don't believe anymore than that and i could careless about religions.I have no religion but the way i choose to run my life.
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You can't say you "believe there is a heaven and hell" and "A god and a devil" but then go on to say you aren't religious. That's oxymoronic. You are a Theist by the sounds of it.
 
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